‘What is the matter with him?’ Colonel Osborne had asked.

‘It is impossible to say what is the matter with him,’ Mrs Trevelyan had replied.  After that she had at once gone upstairs to her child, telling herself that she was doing all that the strictest propriety could require in leaving the man’s society as soon as her husband was gone.  Then there was an awkward minute or two between Nora and Colonel Osborne, and he took his leave.

Stanbury at last promised that he would see Trevelyan, repeating, however, very frequently that often used assertion, that no task is so hopeless as that of interfering between a man and his wife.  Nevertheless he promised, and undertook to look for Trevelyan at the Acrobats on that afternoon.  At last he got a moment in which to produce the letter from his sister, and was able to turn the conversation for a few minutes to his own affairs.  Dorothy’s letter was read and discussed by both the ladies with much zeal.  ’It is quite a strange world to me,’ said Dorothy, ’but I am beginning to find myself more at my ease than I was at first.  Aunt Stanbury is very good-natured, and when I know what she wants, I think I shall be able to please her.  What you said of her disposition is not so bad to me, as of course a girl in my position does not expect to have her own way.’

’Why shouldn’t she have her share of her own way as well as anybody else?’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

‘Poor Dorothy would never want to have her own way,’ said Hugh.

‘She ought to want it,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

‘She has spirit enough to turn if she’s trodden on,’ said Hugh.

‘That’s more than what most women have,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

Then he went on with the letter.  ’She is very generous, and has given me 6 pounds 5s in advance of my allowance.  When I said I would send part of it home to mamma, she seemed to be angry, and said that she wanted me always to look nice about my clothes.  She told me afterwards to do as I pleased, and that I might try my own way for the first quarter.  So I was frightened, and only sent thirty shillings.  We went out the other evening to drink tea with Mrs MacHugh, an old lady whose husband was once dean.  I had to go, and it was all very nice.  There were a great many clergymen there, but many of them were young men.’  ‘Poor Dorothy,’ exclaimed Nora.  ’One of them was the minor canon who chants the service every morning.  He is a bachelor.’  ‘Then there is a hope for her,’ said Nora ’and he always talks a little as though he were singing the Litany.’  ‘That’s very bad,’ said Nora; ’fancy having a husband to sing the Litany to you always.’  ’Better that, perhaps, than having him always singing something else,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

It was decided between them that Dorothy’s state might on the whole be considered as flourishing, but that Hugh was bound as a brother to go down to Exeter and look after her.  He explained, however, that he was expressly debarred from calling on his sister, even between the hours of half-past nine and half-past twelve on Wednesday mornings, and that he could not see her at all unless he did so surreptitiously.